Photo courtesy of Oliver Anderson
Recent Carleton History MA graduate Oliver Anderson has explored the history of the Ottawa River’s tributaries through canoe tripping. In an article for the Ottawa Citizen, Anderson explains how Ottawa’s history as a logging centre can be experienced first-hand while canoeing down the Coulonge River:
“Last July, while completing my M.A. in History at Carleton University, I travelled down the Coulonge with a group of five friends. While we revelled in shooting raging rapids or catching hefty pikes and walleyes over our eight-day descent of the river, we were also surprised by all the evidence of its former life as an artery of one of Canada’s oldest industries.”
Anderson’s canoe trip took him past the former site of an E.B. Eddy Company lumber camp, along water-ways lined with wooden “boom” walls which once served to guide logs down the Coulonge rapids, and by the remnants of an old “pointer” boat. Click here to see all of Anderson’s article.
Oliver Anderson
As to how his MA studies have informed his canoe tripping experience Anderson says,
“My studies in Canadian and indigenous history have given my annual canoe trips more context. They have helped me appreciate that every landscape has many stories to tell, and I enjoy uncovering those stories through research before, during and after my trips. Furthermore, these personal experiences provide a great opportunity to write compelling articles that can find an audience through newspapers and other publications.”